Creeper

There are a couple of mid 70s mocha jazz basses around at the moment which I keep looking at, and just can decide. There is one at my local which was owned by then bassist from the shadows, plenty of mojo, and also reasonably priced......

I’ve never ever ever ever ever.....

even tried anything other than a 4 string....

An off button would be useful....

13 minutes ago, Rumple said:

I find it odd that you can buy cheap Celluloid guitar picks that look reasonably close to vintage tort but it is so hard to find a nice reasonably priced scratchplate.

That my friend, is a very good point very well made, whilst not perfect, that looks a damn sight better than most modern tort..

I just can’t make my mind up whether I quite like those 70s mocha basses or whether they are just a bit crap, do they manage to capture some 70s mojo.... maybe.....are they cool or they crap?

Check Axels store out over in germany, I bought my 69 tort Jazz pickguard from him, he currently has a 65 tort for sale, great guy to deal with and has some great vintage gear.

http://www.gitarren-laden.com/

Here’s the Spitfire tort I had made for my Precision, very very good but still not like the originals, how hard can it be? Do they just not know how to do it anymore?

i found a guy in Germany selling vintage tort pickguards and I picked that 69 Jazz one up for about the same as the Spitfire cost.....

2 hours ago, Geek99 said:

I have some celluloid Tort for sale with many happy BC buyers 

pm me if you want some 

But does it look like this? This is from a 1969 Jazz bass.

And no holes for a pickup cover, although a rather strange large hole under the G string......

On closer inspection that pickguard is definitely not original, holes in the wrong place fixing to the body for a 62 reissue and no holes for thumb rest on the “south side”..:.

the rest of it, who knows without pictures of the guts....

Very nice if it’s original, however pretty sure that a 1983 Fullerton vintage reissue 62 Precision wouldnt have s Black pickguard, they only came on the scene in73....

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F202123862757

Why is it that modern tort pickguards just look crap, you can buy a beautifully crafted Fender Custom Shop vintage reissue which is lovingly crafted in the image of the original bass, to the finest detail, and then they slap on the crappest piece of pretend tort as a pickguard. Let’s be honest, this stuff looks nothing like the original, vintage tort is beautiful, everyone is slightly different with shimmering patterns, deep reds and swirly things, modern tort is pretty crap and does not look nice. 

Spitfire torts which are rediculouy expensive are about the best your are going to get, they are pretty good, but again just do not stack up to the originals. Surely it cannot be that hard? 

Am I wrong? Is the tort pickguard an art form lost to time???

TI do come up on sale on basschat quite often, people buy them and tend to either live or hate them, if you’re a lover you’re sorted!

Now this is a proper combo!

That’s lovely 

Tuning up to gigs is a good start!

I must admit that I do prefer fretted notes, they sound fuller to my ear, although I’m the mix of a live performance there won’t be much difference.